protobuf map value is object or array of object

Question

I have

message {
   message leadsEntity{
     optional string name = 1;
   }
   optional string description = 1;
   map <string, leadsEntity>  entity = 2;
}

Now I can have 2 types of responses-

    // 1st case
    {
       description : "this is test",
       entity : {
         key1 : { name : "name1" },
         key2 : { name : "name2" }
       }
    }

Or

   // 2nd case
   {
       description : "this is test",
       entity : {
         key1 : { name : "name1" },
         key2 : [ { name : "name2" } ] //the value in array now
       }
    }

Now the above given proto message works perfectly for 1st case. But how to handle 2nd case? where the value is an object array?

Answer 1

I assume by the use of optional that you prefer proto2

Your existing proto is invalid.

Your response types are going to make your life difficult because the entity values are a union of types.

Perhaps something like this:

syntax = "proto2";

message X {
   message LeadsEntity{
      optional string name = 1;
   }
   message LeadsEntities {
      repeated LeadsEntity leads_entity = 1;
   }
   message Value {
      oneof These {
         LeadsEntity leads_entity = 1;
         LeadsEntities leads_entities = 2;
      }
   }
   optional string description = 1;
   map <string, Value>  entity = 2;
}

• I gave the root message the name X
• I added LeadsEntities to hold the repeated LeadsEntity
• I added Value to hold the oneof

from google.protobuf.json_format import MessageToJson

import x_pb2

x = x_pb2.X()
x.description = "this is a test"
x.entity["key1"].leads_entity.name = "name1"

le = x.entity["key2"].leads_entities.leads_entity.add()
le.name = "name2"

print(MessageToJson(x))

Yields:

{
  "description": "this is a test",
  "entity": {
    "key1": {
      "leadsEntity": {
        "name": "name1"
      }
    },
    "key2": {
      "leadsEntities": {
        "leadsEntity": [
          {
            "name": "name2"
          }
        ]
      }
    }
  }
}